Visiting Artist Coming to the Powerhouse

By By Marilyn Sadler

New York-based multimedia artist Rashaad Newsome brings his exhibition — the video installation Swag — to the Bluff City March 1st through the 3rd. It's the first in the Crosstown Arts' Visiting Artist Series, which is sponsored by VO2 Networx. The exhibition kicks off with an opening reception and lecture, free and open to the public, at 6 p.m. on March 1st, at the Powerhouse, located at 45 G.E. Patterson. Newsome will also lead an open critique/discussion of select work by students at the University of Memphis and Memphis College of Art.

In the videos, the artist takes hip-hop and pop advertising imagery and wraps them in a neo-Baroque style, rich in ornament and heraldry. The original music in Swag is produced by Newsome and such visual and recording artists as Laurie Anderson, Stefanos Koroneos, Maluca Lala, and others, giving fuller life to the artistic collage.

Born in New Orleans and living currently in New York, Newsome has exhibited at the Pompidou Center in Paris, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Greater New York 2010 at MoMA PS1.

Swag is part of Our Vibe Our City, at Powerhouse, presented by ArtsMemphis at Live from Memphis' Music Video Showcase 7. For more about Crosstown Arts, visit crosstownarts.org. For more about the artist, visit rashaadnewsome.com.

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